Cholesteric liquid crystals can achieve bionic color change and are of great value in development and application in military and civilian fields.

Chiral liquid crystal is a liquid crystal molecule with chirality. The mirror image molecule of this molecule cannot overlap with itself through any translation or rotation transformation. The cholesteric phase is a type of liquid crystal phase in which the molecules are arranged parallel in the plane and make spiral changes along the normal direction of the plane. Cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCEs) are chiral liquid crystals with unique optical properties.

Cholesteric liquid crystal is a chiral soft photonic crystal with a periodic spiral superstructure. Due to the special spiral structure, cholesteric liquid crystals have obvious optical rotation, selective light reflectivity, light scattering rays, circularly polarized light dichroism, negative birefringence and other characteristics. Among them, selective light reflectivity is the ability to selectively reflect visible light of different wavelengths to produce structural colors, so cholesteric liquid crystals can show different colors to the naked eye.

At the same time, cholesteric liquid crystals are extremely sensitive to external light, electricity, magnetism, force, heat, etc. When stimulated by these external factors, the spatial structure of cholesteric liquid crystals will change, resulting in a change in structural color, that is, the appearance of Produce color changes visible to the naked eye. Due to the above characteristics, cholesteric liquid crystals can achieve color-changing properties similar to the outer skin of a chameleon, and have excellent bionic color-changing and intelligent color-changing properties.

According to the “2021-2025 Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Industry In-depth Market Research and Investment Strategy Suggestions Report” released by the Industrial Research Center, Due to its special optical properties, cholesteric liquid crystals can be widely used in fields such as optical filters, sensors, tunable lasers, optical instruments, new display devices, intelligent robots, military industry and national defense. For example, in the field of national defense and military industry, cholesteric liquid crystals can develop bionic color-changing camouflage materials to achieve military camouflage. They play an important role in military operations and can improve combat effectiveness. Therefore, cholesteric liquid crystals have broad development prospects in both military and civilian fields.

At this stage, the global cholesteric liquid crystal is still in the research stage, but related research results are increasing. Abroad, in 2019, scientists from the University of Tokyo in Japan achieved rapid electrochemical color adjustment of cholesteric liquid crystals. In my country, in December 2021, the Tianjin University research team successfully developed a device that combines mechanochromism, shape programmability and room temperature by introducing dynamic covalent borate ester bonds into the main chain cholesteric liquid crystal elastomer. Cholesteric liquid crystal elastomer with self-healing properties.

Industry analysts said that cholesteric liquid crystal is a chiral liquid crystal with a periodic spiral superstructure and unique optics. It can show different colors to the naked eye, and can achieve color-changing function under the stimulation of light, electricity, magnetism and other external factors. It has great development value in both military and civilian fields. In the future, as technology research becomes increasingly mature, cholesteric liquid crystals are expected to gradually achieve industrialization. However, judging from the current technological development status, cholesteric liquid crystals will still be in the research stage for a long time, and commercial development is far away.